Maybe he was pissed. He would be pissed if it happened to his dog. But still, he'd be understanding. Wouldn't ghost the guy if he dropped a bag full of
money
on him.
He thought about this. Wanting to be recognized for giving the dude money, way more than what the surgery cost. But he felt like this yearning for
recognition
was wrong. But it's all he felt. It's not that he wanted praise or anything like that. Just a text saying thank you would've been enough. Hell, dude could've even thanked him through Jasmine. No need to contact him direct.
He needed to get out. The bag of weed had barely been touched. Days were spent him not working out. His agent Randy was going to kill him. He knew as soon as Randy found out some
motivation
would suddenly get injected into him. He'd be back running stairs and shooting 300 free throws to start the morning. He'd be back to squatting 3 x 20s. That's what linking up with Randy did to him.
This was why he had been avoiding Randy. Some time ago he had decided that being a pro
NBA
player wasn't right for him. But the world never supported that. It was a crazy idea to give up such a life opportunity. So he had no support in sitting with that idea. That feeling. Just quitting the league.
Past few weeks he'd been able to sit with it. Alone from the world. Not watching what they were saying about him on TV and the blogs. He had hoped this would feel kind of nice, but it didn't. Instead he was now more confused. If not to play basketball professionally, what ought he to do? There was no clear answer. Nobody obvious to speak to.
Jasmine felt like the one person that provided even the slightest chance. She'd known him since the old days. Before he was Johnny Rocket. Before the attention and pressure.
But she hadn't been responding to him much recently. He didn't know what was going on in her life, but he knew when she was receptive -- at least to him -- and not. And these days she wasn't. Sometimes he'd text a "hey how's it going?" but delete before sending.
He looked down at his phone and deleted the message he had wrote. Boring fare. "Hey, what's up?"
Instead he wrote something that he was hoping would be funny. "Yo did bro get the bag?"
She responded right away.
"Yes very funny, J."
Funny? he wondered. What could she mean funny? Was the Gucci bag too gaudy?
